Skylab

St. Paul Minnesota high school student, Roger Johnston (center), Gene Vacca (left) of NASA Headquarters, and Ann Whitaker of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) discuss the equipment to be used for the student’s experiment, “Capillary Action Studies in a State of Free Fall”, to be performed aboard the Skylab the following year. Johnston was among 25 winners of a contest in which some 3,500 high school students proposed experiments for the following year’s Skylab mission. The nationwide scientific competition was sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The winning students, along with their parents and sponsor teachers, visited MSFC two months earlier where they met with scientists and engineers, participated in design reviews for their experiments, and toured MSFC facilities. Of the 25 students, 6 did not see their experiments conducted on Skylab because the experiments were not compatible with Skylab hardware and timelines. Of the 19 remaining, 11 experiments required the manufacture of additional equipment. The equipment for the experiments was manufactured at MSFC.